THE WOOF OF DAILY THINGS
"Dilly, you're not worth shucks since you came back!" exclaimed the
boy in a severely upbraiding tone. "You don't do nothin' as you used,
you just sit and moon. Do you want to go back to that old man? I sh'd
think you'd been awful dull."
"Do you talk that way at school?"
"Oh, well, a fellow needn't be so fussy at home."
"What would you like me to do? You are off with the boys----"
"That's because you're no good. You don't run races nor climb trees
nor wade in the brook to catch frogs, nor jump--I'll bet you don't
know how to jump any more. And you were a staver!"
"Girls leave off those things. And you are a good deal younger, and
ought to have a boy's good times. I must sew and spin and help keep
house and work in the garden to take care of the flowers and learn to
cook."
"My! I wouldn't be a girl for anything! Dilly, who will you marry?"
Her face was scarlet. Must a girl marry? She understood now the drift
of the talk she had unwittingly overheard. And her cheek burned
thinking that she had been offered and declined.
"I'm not going to marry any one in a good while," she returned
gravely.
"Tim Garvin asked me----" he looked at her hesitatingly.
"Well?"
"If he might come round. He thinks you sing like a mocking bird. And
he says he likes yellow hair. I don't. I wish yours was black and that
you had red cheeks and that you'd laugh real loud, and want to play
games."
"There are plenty of little girls, Felix, who are ready for any sort
of fun."
He spun round on his heel and went off. It had been one of the
resplendent early autumn days with a breath of summer in the air and
the richness of all ripening things. The call of the wood thrush came
softly through the trees with a lingering delicious tenderness. She sat
on a large boulder nearly at the foot of a great sycamore tree. She
used to have a play-house here. What had changed her so? She did not
want to go back to Philadelphia. She would never want to see Mr.
Bartram again. In a way she was content. Her father loved her very
much, it was a stronger love in one way, a man's love, though her
mother was tender and planning a nice future for her.
She did not understand that it was the dawning of womanhood, the
opening of a new, strange life different from what had gone before.
There was a sort of delicious mystery about it and she stood in
tremulous awe. It was going to bring her something that she half
dreaded, half desired.
She had gone down by the schoolhouse one afternoon. They had built a
new one, really quite smart, and now they had taken off an hour of the
last session. The children were out at play, racing, screaming,
wrestling, here playing ring around a rosy, here London bridge is
falling down, here a boy chasing a girl and kissing her roughly, she
slapping his face and being kissed half a dozen times more. Had she
ever been one of this boisterous, romping group?
The French blood had brought in more refinement, like the Quaker
element. And she had been rather diffident. At home they were more
delicate, while they had too much good breeding and kindliness to hold
themselves much above their neighbors.
The marriage of Janie Byerly was quite an event. It took place at ten
in the morning and there was a great wedding cake with slices for the
girls to dream on. Then they went down to the boat in a procession and
there was a merry time as the boat made ready to push out. Rice had
not come in yet, but old shoes were there in abundance.
There were other marriages and the little girl went to them because
she did not want to slight her old companions. Some of the couples
set up housekeeping in a two-roomed cabin and the new wife went on
with her spinning or weaving and some of them were quite expert at
tailoring. There was plenty of work getting ready for winter.
Tim Garvin had been as good as his word and came on Sunday evening.
Daffodil sheltered herself behind her father's protecting wing. They
talked of the whiskey question, of the Ohio trade, and then there was
a lagging, rather embarrassing time. Four elderly people sat
around--they generally retired and gave the young folks a chance, but
it was Daffodil who disappeared first. And Tim did not make a second
attempt.
The Langdale boys had better luck in establishing friendliness. Ned
came over in high feather one afternoon. Daffodil was practising a
rather intricate piece of lace making. He looked manly and proud. He
was tall and well filled out, very well looking.
"I hope you'll all congratulate me," he began in a buoyant tone. "I've
enlisted. I'm going to live up at the Fort and begin soldier life in
earnest."
"And I do most heartily wish you success," declared grandmere, her
eyes lighting up with a kind of admiration at the manly face in the
pride of youth. "We shall need soldiers many a day yet, though I hope
the worst is over. Still the Indians are treacherous and stubborn."
"And we may have another fight on our hands;" laughing. "For we are
not going to be ridden over rough shod."
"But you must belong to the government side now."
"I suppose so;" flushing.
The delinquent distillers had been summoned to Philadelphia and had
refused to go.
"This is our very living," declared grandad, who was one of the most
fiery insurgents. "Then they will tax our grain, our crops of all
kinds. A king could do no worse! What did I tell you about these men!
Why, we'll have to emigrate t'other side of the Mississippi and start
a new town. That's all we get for our labor and hard work."
"I ought to have waited until this thing was settled," Ned said rather
ruefully, studying Daffodil's face. "But I had hard work to coax
father, and when he consented I rushed off at once. He thinks there's
going to be fortunes in this iron business, and Archie won't be worth
shucks at it. He hates it as much as I do, but he's all for books, and
getting his living by his brains. Maybe he'll be a lawyer."
Daffodil flushed. She held Archie's secret.
"You don't like it," Ned began when he had persuaded her to walk a
little way with him. "You said once you didn't like soldiering. Yet it
is a noble profession, and I'm not going to stay down at the bottom of
the line."
"No," with a sweet reluctance as if she was sorry to admit it. "It
seems cruel to me, why men should like to kill each other."
"They don't like it in the way of enjoyment, but do their duty. And
they are for the protection of the homes, the women and children. We
may have another Indian raid; we have some"--then he paused, he was
going to say, "some French to clear out," but refrained. The French
still held some desirable western points.
"Father talks of the war occasionally, and mother shivers and
says--'My heart would have broken if I had known that!' And to be away
three years or more, never knowing if one was alive!"
No, she wouldn't do for a soldier's wife. And Archie had prefigured
himself a bachelor; he really had nothing to fear there, only would
she not take more interest in his brother? There were other young
fellows in the town, but not many of her kind. Well, he would
wait--she seemed quite like a child yet.
Somehow she had not made the same impression as she had in
Philadelphia. No one praised her hair or her beautiful complexion or
her grace in dancing. It did not hurt her exactly, but she felt sorry
she could not please as readily. Only--she did not care for that kind
of florid approbation.
Grandmere looked up from her work when they had gone out. "He is a
fine lad," she commented. "And they are of a good family. Daffodil is
nearing sixteen. Though there doesn't seem much need of soldiers--it
is a noble profession. It seems just the thing for him."
"She is such a child yet. I don't know how we could spare her. And her
father is so fond of her."
Mrs. Bradin had a rather coveting regard for the young man. And a
pretty girl like Daffodil should not hang on hand.
Ned Langdale made friends easily at the Fort. And during the second
month, on account of a little misbehavior in the ranks, he was
advanced to the sergeantship.
Meanwhile feeling ran higher and higher. Those who understood that the
power of the general government must be the law of the land were
compelled to keep silence lest they should make matters worse. Even
the clergy were forced to hold their peace. Processes were served and
thrown into the fire or torn to bits. Then the government interfered
and troops were ordered out.
Bernard Carrick had tried to keep his father within bounds. It did not
do to protest openly, but he felt the government should be obeyed, or
Pittsburg would be the loser. Bradford and several others ordered the
troops to march to Braddock's field, and then to Pittsburg. The town
was all astir and in deadly terror lest if the insurgents could not
rule they would ruin. But after all it was a bloodless revolution.
Governor Mifflin, after a temperate explanation, softening some of the
apparently arbitrary points, commanded the insurgents to disperse.
Breckenridge thought it safest to give good words rather than powder
and balls. So they marched through the town in excellent order and
came out on the plains of the Monogahela where the talking was
softened with libations of whiskey, and a better understanding
prevailed, the large distillers giving in to the majesty of the law.
Some of the still disgruntled insurgents set fire to several barns,
but no special damage was done. And thus ended the year's turmoil and
business went on with renewed vigor. There was also an influx of
people, some to settle, others from curiosity. But the West was
awakening a new interest and calling for immigrants.
Mrs. Janie Sanders came back with glowing accounts of the town on the
Ohio. And now trade was fairly established by the line of boats. And
from there down to New Orleans continual traffic was established.
The older log houses were disappearing or turned into kitchens with a
finer exterior in front. People began to laugh at the old times when
there was much less than a thousand inhabitants.
And though Bernard Carrick still called his daughter "Little Girl,"
she was quite grown up with a slim lissome figure and her golden hair
was scarcely a shade darker. She was past sixteen, and yet she had
never had a lover. Young men dropped in of a Sunday afternoon or
evening, but she seemed to act as if they were her father's guests.
After two or three attempts they dropped out again.
Archie had gone to Philadelphia for a year at a preparatory school,
then was to enter college. Ned now was first lieutenant, having been
promoted for bravery and foresight in warding off an Indian sortie
that might have been a rather serious matter.
The little girl had vanished with the old Pittsburg. She hardly knew
herself in these days. Something seemed to touch her with a magic
wand. She was full of joy with all things of the outside world, and
the spring and the early summer, nature seemed to speak in all manner
of wooing tongues and she answered. She took long walks in the woods
and came home with strange new flowers. There was not much to read, it
was not a season of intellectuality but a busy, thrifty time laying
the foundation for the great city of industry and prosperity that was
to be.
Barbe Carrick made pretty garments with fine needlework and lace and
laid them by in an old oaken chest. Grandmere was sometimes a little
impatient over the dreaming child. Another year was going and she had
counted on Daffodil being married before the next generation of girls
came to the fore. Plain ones, loud, awkward ones were married and had
a jollification. Some of them at twenty had three or four children.
She was very sweet, charming and helpful. Grandad had taken the
"knuckling down," as he called it, rather hard, but it seemed as if
the tax and more came back in increased sales. He was very fond of
small Sandy, now a fast-growing boy, but there was a different love
for Daffodil, who looked over his accounts, read the paper to him, and
listened to his stories as well as his complaints.
"I wish it wasn't so much the fashion for girls to marry," he said one
day to Norah. "I don't know how we could spare Dilly."
"And keep her an old maid!" with scorn in her voice. "But it's queer!
One would think lovers would buzz about her like bees."
Now and then there came a letter from Philadelphia that she answered
with a good long one, yet she wondered afterward what she found to
say. That visit seemed such a long, long while ago, almost in another
life. And Mistress Betty Wharton had married and gone to Paris, as her
husband was connected with the embassy. There were many questions yet
to settle.
"Don't you want to go over to the Fort with me, Daffodil?" her father
asked one afternoon. He had a fondness for Lieutenant Langdale, and
not the slightest objection to him as a future son-in-law.
"Oh, yes," eagerly, and joined him, smiling under the great hat with
its flaring front filled in with gathered silk, her white frock short
enough to show the trim ankles and dainty feet, and her green silk
parasol that had come from Philadelphia that very spring. She
generally wore her hair in curls, though it was cut much shorter in
the front and arranged not unlike more modern finger puffs. A very
pretty girl of the refined type.
Fort Pitt was then in all its glory though the old block house of
Colonel Bouquet was still standing, up Duquesne way, and there were
soldiers strolling about and a few officers in uniform.
Langdale was on duty somewhere. Captain Forbes came to greet them.
"You'll find the general in his office, Mr. Carrick. May I take charge
of Miss Carrick, meanwhile?"
"Yes, I shall be glad to have you."
Captain Forbes was a Philadelphian, so they were not at loss for
conversation. Here two or three men were in earnest discussion, there
one deeply interested in a book, who touched his cap without looking
up. In a shady corner two men were playing chess, one a civilian, the
other a young private.
"Well, Hugh, how goes it?" asked the captain.
"Why, I am not discouraged;" laughing and bowing to Daffodil.
"He is going to make a good, careful player, and I think a fine
soldier."
"Allow me--Mr. Andsdell, Miss Carrick."
There had come with General Lee and his body of soldiers sent to quell
the insurgents, a number of citizens out of curiosity to see the place.
Among them a young Englishman, who had been in the country several
years seeking his fortune and having various successes. He had tried
the stage at Williamsburg, Virginia, and won not a little applause. He
was an agreeable well-mannered person and always had excellent luck at
cards without being a regular gamester. He made no secret of belonging
to a titled family, but being a younger son with four lives between
him and the succession he had come to America to try his fortune. Yet
even in this new world fortunes were not so easily found or made.
Daffodil watched them with interest. M. de Ronville had played it with
an elderly friend.
"You have seen it before?" Andsdell asked, raising his eyes and
meeting the interested ones.
"Oh, yes; in Philadelphia. I spent a few months there."
Her voice had a charm. She seemed indeed not an ordinary girl.
"I have been there part of the last year. I was much interested."
He kept a wary eye on the young fellow's moves.
Once he said--"No, don't do that; think."
The other thought to some purpose and smiled.
"You are improving."
A flush of pleasure lighted the boyish face.
"Check," said Andsdell presently. "I had half a mind to let you win,
but you made two wrong moves."
The young man glanced at his watch. "Now I must go and drill," he
exclaimed. "Can we say to-morrow afternoon again?"
"With pleasure;" smiling readily.
He bowed himself away. Andsdell rose.
"I wonder if I might join your walk? I have met a Mr. Carrick----"
"That was my father likely. Grandfather is quite an old man."
"And figured in the--what shall we call it--_émeute_?"
Captain Forbes laughed. "That was about it. Yet at one time I was a
good deal afraid there would be a fierce struggle. Better counsels
prevailed, however. When the army arrived those who had not really
dared to say the government was right so far as obedience was
concerned came out on the right side. A thousand or so soldiers
carried weight," with a half sarcastic laugh.
Andsdell stole furtive glances at the girl the other side of Forbes.
What a graceful, spirited walk she had; just what one would expect
with that well poised figure.
Then she stopped suddenly and the captain paused in his talk as she
half turned.
"There's father," she exclaimed with a smile that Andsdell thought
enchanting.
He had met the Englishman before and greeted him politely. After a
little talk he slipped his daughter's arm through his and said mostly
to her--"I am ready now."
She made her adieu with a kind of nonchalant grace in which there was
not a particle of coquetry. He followed her with his eyes until they
had turned the corner of the bastion. Then again he saw her as they
were going out.
"I should think that girl would have half the men in the town at her
feet," he said.
"Oh, Miss Carrick?" as if he was not quite certain. Then with a half
smile--"Do you think so? Well, she hasn't."
"She is very lovely."
"In a certain way, yes. I believe our people like more color, more
dash and spirit. We are not up on a very high round, pioneers seldom
are. It takes a generation or so to do the hard work, then comes the
embellishment. They are rather dignified and have some French ways.
An old grandfather, the fourth generation back, might have stood for a
portrait of the grand Marquis. It is on the mother's side."
"She doesn't favor the French."
"No, but the boy does, a bright, handsome fellow, wild as a deer and
full of pranks. It will be hard to tell what race we do favor most. A
hundred years hence we will be going back with a sort of pride,
hunting up ancestors. At present there is too much to do."
Andsdell went his way presently. He was comfortably well lodged. He
had a bountiful supper and then he went out for a walk. There was a
young moon over in the west just light enough to bring out the silvery
beech trunks and touch the tips of the grasses. The woodthrush still
gave his long sweet call at intervals. This path led into the town. He
would not go that way. He wished he knew just where these Carricks
lived. He fancied her sitting on the porch drinking in the loveliness
of the evening.
How absurd! He had seen pretty girls before, danced with them, flirted
with them. There were the imperious belles of Virginia, who bewitched
a man's fancy in one evening. There were the fair seductive maids of
Philadelphia, and so far he had not been specially impressed with the
girls of this town. A crowd were coming this way--he heard the
strident laughter and loud voices, so he stepped aside.
Dilly was not sitting out in the fragrant air, but trying to explain a
lesson to Felix. Neither did she give one thought to the young
Englishman. She was glad in her inmost heart that Ned Langdale had
been engaged elsewhere. Something in his eyes troubled her. She did
not want to make him unhappy. She hated to be cold and distant to her
friend, yet when she warmed a little he seemed to take so much for
granted that she did not feel inclined to grant. Why couldn't one be
satisfied with friendship? Occasionally she heard from Archie. They
were eager, ambitious letters and she always read them aloud.
But if there could come any warmer interest Archie never would be
content with this busy, bustling, working town, and then they would
lose her. Every day she grew dearer to the mother. Geoffrey Andsdell
decided he did not like the place very well either. He could not be
winning money all the time from the garrison, and no business opening
had been really thrust upon him, though he felt it was high time he
turned his attention to the fact of making an honest living. He had
wasted four years since he left England. It would be folly to return,
and when that thought crossed his mind he bit his lip and an ugly look
settled in his eyes. He had come to the New World to forget all that.
Yes, he would go back to Philadelphia. There were genteel
opportunities there, and he was not a dullard if he had not been
business bred.
He was asking a little advice of Mrs. Forbes as they had been
sauntering about the hills that were showing bits of autumnal scenery
and scattering the fragrance of all ripening things on the air. The
jocund song of the birds had settled into a sort of leisurely
sweetness, their summer work was done, nest building and caring for
the young was over with for the season, and they could review their
losses and gains. Somewhere along the stream that wound in and out a
great frog boomed hoarsely and the younger ones had lost their fine
soprano in trying to emulate him. Insects of all kinds were shrilling
and whirring, yet underneath it all there was a curious stillness.
Then a human voice broke on their ear singing a merry Irish lilt.
"Oh, that's Daffodil Carrick. I could tell her voice from fifty
others. It is never loud but it carries so distinctly. Let's see where
she is."
They turned into the wider path zigzagging through the woods. Yes,
there she sat on the limb of a tree she had bent down and was gently
swaying to and fro. Her sun-bonnet was held by the strings serving to
drive troublesome insects away. Her golden hair clustered about her
temples in rings and then floated off by the motion of the swinging, a
lovely bewildering cloud. She did not notice them at first; then she
sprang up, her face a delicate rosy tint.
"Oh, Mrs. Forbes! And--Mr. Andsdell!"
She looked a startled woodland nymph. He thought he had never seen a
more lovely picture.
"Are you having a nice time to yourself in your parlor among the
hills? Can't we sit down and share it with you? I am tired. We have
been rambling up hill and down dale."
A great hollow tree had fallen some time and Mrs. Forbes seated
herself waving her hand to Mr. Andsdell, who looked a little
uncertain.
"Oh, yes," Daffodil said. "I have been roaming around also. It is just
the day for it. Now the sun comes out and tints everything, then it is
shade and a beautiful gray green."
"You were singing," he said, thinking what compliment would not be too
ornate. Out here in the woods with nature and truth one could not use
flattery.
"Yes." She laughed softly a sound that was enchanting. "When I was
little I was a devout believer in fairies. Grandfather Carrick's
second wife came from Ireland when she was fifteen, and she knew the
most charming stories. You know there are stories that seem true and
hers did. I used to feel sure they would come and dance in the grass.
That was the song little Eileen sang, and they carried her off, but
they couldn't keep her because she wore a cross that had been put
round her neck when she was christened."
"And did you want to be carried off?" he asked.
"Yes, I think I did. But I had a cross that I made of beads and named
them after the saints. We are not Catholics, but Huguenots. I took my
cross out in the woods with me, but the fairies never came."
"There is a great deal of really beautiful faith about those things,"
said Mrs. Forbes. "And some of the Indian legends as well. Old
Watersee has stores of them. Some one ought to collect the best of
them. Fairy stories go all over the world, I think, in different
guise. They are the delight of our early lives. It's sad to lose that
childhood faith."
"Oh, I don't want to lose it all," Daffodil said earnestly. "I just
say to myself it might have been true somewhere."
Then they branched off into other matters. The sky grew grayer and the
wind moaned through the trees, shaking down a cloud of ripe leaves.
"Is it going to rain?" asked Andsdell.
"I think it will storm by to-morrow, but not now. You see, evening is
coming on. We might go down;" tentatively, not sure she was the one to
propose it.
The path was beautiful, winding in and out, sometimes over the pile of
richest moss, then stirring up the fragrance of pennyroyal. But the
streets and houses began to appear.
Barbe Carrick sat on the porch waiting for her daughter, always
feeling a little anxious if she loitered, though these woods were free
from stragglers. She came to meet them now, she knew Mrs. Forbes and
invited them to rest awhile, and they cheerfully accepted. Then she
went for some cake and grapes and brought some foaming spruce beer.
Even grandmere came out to meet the guests. Andsdell was delighted and
praised everything and Mrs. Bradin said with her fine French
courtesy--"You must come again."
"I shall be most happy to," he replied.
They finished their walk almost in silence. Andsdell was recalling the
many charms of the young girl. Mrs. Forbes was looking upon him in the
light of a lover. She could understand that the ordinary young man of
the town could not make much headway with Daffodil Carrick. There were
some nice men in the garrison, but after all----And it was high time
Daffodil had a lover. All women are matchmakers by instinct and
delight in pairing off young folks. She was a happy wife herself, but
she recalled the fact that the girl was not in love with soldiers.